Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it passed to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP64). In July 1935 Judith Merivale sold it to Sir Montagu Montagu-Pollock (1864–1938), whose son Sir William Montagu-Pollock (1903–1993) sold it at Sotheby’s on 18 March 1964, lot 26, for £750 to Agnew’s (no.3998). On 23 July 1964 Agnew’s sold it to a private collector. In 1970 it was given anonymously to the current owner, Rhode Island School of Design (70.118.52).

Comment

Given Towne’s inscription, this is probably the plain described by William Coxe as being near the summit of Mount Splugen: “Toward the summit of the Splugen there is an oval plain about two miles long and one broad, encircled with craggy points: it produces no trees, but yields rich pasturage. Near the summit I noticed several rude blocks of a whitish kind of marble.”1

The scene shows a fast-flowing torrent over which a couple of figures stand on a rudimentary crossing. Around them the mountains crowd the page, and a cloud hovers not far above ground. There is only a small area of blue sky. The washes are uncharacteristically shoddy, somewhat in the manner of the sketch of a Claude Lorrain painting that was probably made in the later 1780s or 1790s (FT805). They were surely applied that night.